August 28 — St. Augustine

St. Augustine (pronounced aw-GUS-tin, not AUG-us-teen) was born November 13, 354 in Tagaste (now the village of Souk-Ahras), in northern Africa, near the eastern border of Algeria. His father was a pagan and his mother a Christian. He had a classical education and followed the neo-Platonic philosophy of Plotinus; and he became a teacher of rhetoric. He had a son with a woman he lived with for 14 years but never married.

In keeping with the custom of the times, he was not baptized as an infant, but enrolled as a catechumen. While studying at Carthage he became a Manichean. It was his mother's prayer for years that he would become a Christian.

Having taught for a while in Tagaste and Carthage, he went to Rome in 383 and a year later got an appointment to teach rhetoric in Milan, where the influence of the bishop, St. Ambrose, led his questing soul to Christianity. He was baptized by Ambrose at the Easter Vigil, April 24-25, 387. (The ancient baptistry was rediscovered under the plaza just in front of the present cathedral during work on the city's subway system. I found it very moving to be able to visit there.)

Augustine then returned to Africa. Along the way his mother, St. Monica, who had joined him in Milan, died at Ostia, and is now buried in the church of St. Augustine in Rome. In Africa he began to lead a monastic life, but in 391 Valerius, the bishop of Hippo, ordained him a priest on the recommendation of the people. He was ordained bishop in 395 or 396 and succeeded Valerius. He remained bishop of Hippoi until his death in 430, while the city was under siege by the Vandals.

He left a large mass of sermons, letters, and commentaries on scripture, but he is probably most widely known for two works, the Confessions and The City of God. In the Confessions, written as being spoken to God, he tells of his spiritual journey and gives reflections of the nature of reality in relation to God. The City of God was written as a response to the pagan taunt, after the fall of Rome in 410, that "Rome has fallen in the Christian days" ahter eight centuries of pagan security. He observes the rise and fall of human cities, kingdoms, and empires through history, and describes the place of the Christian, whose true citizenship is not of this world. Thus the Christian is not a threat to earthly cities, but he cooperates in their task of trying to build justice and order in human society while looking forward to the true justice and peace of the City of God of which he is a citizen.

In the Confessions he writes (Book 10, Chapter 27)

"Too late have I loved you, O beauty so ancient and so new, too late I have loved you! Behold, you were within me, while I was outside: it was there that I sought you, and,  a deformed creature, rushed headlong upon these things of beauty which you have made. You were with me, but I was not with you. They kept me far from you, those fair things which, if they were not in you, would not have existed at all. You have called to me, and have cried out, and have shattered my deafness. You have blazed forth with light and have shone upon me, and you have put my blindness to flight! You have sent forth fragrance, and I have drawn in my breath, and I pant after you. I have tasted you, and I hunger and thirst after you. You have touched me, and I have burned for your peace." (Ryan translation, 1960)

He is called one of the four Western doctors (teachers) of the Church (along with Jerome, Gregory, and Leo); and he is probably the most original thinker and greatest mind among them and the most influential for subsequent thought.